


Day Six, April 13, 1971

by MissAtomicBomb77



Series: For the Greater Good, Let's Do the News [20]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAtomicBomb77/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once the realization that she was in fact, still not there set in, the pain returned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day Six, April 13, 1971

April 13, 1971  
12:11am  
Charlie’s Apartment  
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The noise drifts into his consciousness. He’s unable to reconcile the sound. It’s a gentle uneven tap. At first he thinks it’s typing, that she’s typing on the typewriter. Her Hermes typewriter has a very distinct sound that’s lighter than his typing beast. The rhythm, the beat isn’t quite right, she’s much better at typing than that. It’s consistent, but soft, a bit of a pitter and a bit of patter.

It’s the rain. The rain that everyone had been waiting for weeks had finally started.

He sits up in bed and looks at the table anyway, where he’s seen her sitting, countless times typing away. She’d type letters to her mother, translations for Frank, her own work and even transcribing for him when his typewriter was being bitchy. That typewriter would never make those sounds again. The consistent sound that she was able to make that machine make while she used it was unique, that hum that music was never going to be heard from it ever again. He couldn’t use her typewriter, they learned that early on. The letters y and x were transposed on her keyboard and it fucked him up every single time. She carried that typewriter across the globe. It was her baby and she knew how to use it.

Once the realization that she was in fact, still not there set in, the pain returned. The throbbing of his head made itself known that it was in fact there and was clouded by whisky. The rain, the rain smelled good and it was the only kind thought he had for the outside world today. The rest of his thoughts are of Leona and he can’t push them away. He’s halfway sober, halfway drunk and his brain is caught between. Less than a week ago, she was here, sleeping in this bed naked with him.

They never thought this would end. Well, he thought it would never end. They never had a conversation about the day after tomorrow, meaning after the war. What they would do after the stories were gone and this country found some sense of normalcy. What would they have done? Where would they have gone? Would she have stayed with him or would she have left him behind?

No one ever says, let alone thinks that they’re going to fall in love. Maybe, Charlie now thinks, he knows was love could be. He had the idea almost a year ago that was what had happened to him. His mind drifts to simple gold band he bought for her and never had the courage to give her before. His mind is so clouded he can’t even remember telling her that he loved her. Did those words come from his lips? Or had he been living in fear that she would have rejected him for saying something for the sake of doing so?

Did he love her? Did he tell her? Did he show her?

Did she know he loved her before she was killed?

He lies back on the bed, stares at the ceiling and mentally begins to draft an apology. It’s an apology she will never hear, but if she’s going to be the ghost in him, he wants to attempt to make peace with it. It’s all he can do; sleep is going to evade him now.


End file.
